Medicine (Nanje Series)
by arcanda
Summary: "What was that?" Clarke said with an angry scowl. "What aren't you telling me?" - "Nothing important." Lexa swallowed. "It's personal." - "Seriously?" Clarke's eyes flashed. "You want me to trust you, after everything you did-and THAT'S your tactic?" - Lexa's chin tucked, still rigid. Her eyes darted away. "My mother is dying." (Clexa. Oneshot turned series. Polis reunion AU)
1. I- i

**AN: Just a oneshot I've been working on. in 2 installments. Takes place shortly after a Clarke & Lexa reunion in Polis. Rated M for graphic references (not sexual). CONTENT WARNING: for graphic reference to anecdotal violence/rape/torture, and suicidal sub-theme. This is primarily anecdotal drama, but consider it rated 'Game of Thrones' to be safe. Thoughts, feedback, or reviews always appreciated.**

 **EDIT: Ooop...I slipped and made this a series.**

* * *

'MEDICINE'

—X—

Part I

i

.

It was the third time she'd seen a guard pull Lexa aside and mutter something into her ear, and the second they were interrupted.

"What was that?" Clarke said with a scowl, her chin jerking in the direction the guard had just disappeared. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing important." Lexa was still level and composed, though in Clarke's presence, the practiced hardness of the Commander had never fully returned to her eyes. She swallowed. "It's personal."

There was a pause and then, "Seriously?" Clarke's eyes flashed and she took a step toward her across the room. "A second ago you were trying to convince me your 'personal' feelings even remotely matter—now in the same breath that whatever you're lying to me about doesn't? You want me to trust you, after everything you did: and _that's_ your tactic?" She laughed ruefully. "What is going on," she demanded. She wasn't about to stand there, captive against her will in The Capitol, and be treated like a child while Lexa found a way to grovel for her help in her off-time from secret, tactical exploits.

Lexa's chin tucked, still rigid. Her eyes darted away. "My mother is dying."

Clarke faltered, the steam knocked out of her.

Lexa's eyes stayed glued to the corner of her vision at the wall, anywhere but at Clarke.

"What?" Clarke was thrown. With the way Lexa had acted, and the grounder culture, she'd assumed Lexa's family was already gone.

There was a long silence between them. The grating defensiveness had slid off of Clarke and it was too late to get it back. She could read the subtleties in Lexa's eyes and movements now, even with what she didn't say and do.

"She has an infection." Lexa sured back up from what little slack the confession had allowed. "As I said, it is none of your concern." She was about to start pressing about the war again, like none of this mattered.

But Clarke could tell it did. She hesitated at first, but the healer within her took over. "Let me see."

Lexa was surprised. An hour ago Clarke had a knife to her throat. Her voice remained steady, "There is nothing that can—"

"Take me to her."

" _Why_?" Something flashed through Lexa's eyes. "It isn't your problem, Klark."

Clarke didn't know why.

Maybe being a healer at all made failing to help an act of violence in itself, and she couldn't handle any more blood on her hands, however far removed. In the middle of war and heartache, with wolves at the gate, when you'd already lost everything else: she knew what it was like to think you were going to loose your mother. Her voice was tight but clear, "Maybe I just don't want anyone else to die if I can stop it."

* * *

.

"She does not know about the war," Lexa said over her shoulder at the door, "please do not change that. She deserves peace."

The woman was propped up in a comfortable bed of furs by the wall of the room the entered. She was younger than Clarke expected. Maybe even a decade younger than Abby, which was a little jarring. She looked like Lexa, only worn, older, scarred. Her hair dark and wild. A deep scar ran through her brow over an eye on one side of her face, but it somehow suited her. It looked like her skin was normally darker than Lexa's, but right now she was incredibly pale.

Clarke noticed the rags in the corner of the room were covered in dried blood. She moved forward but Lexa's hand shot out, unbridled, and firmly gripped her upper arm to stop her from getting closer.

 _"Nyko, em ste klir?" (Is she safe?)_ Lexa addressed the healer that had opened the door to them. She still hadn't let go of Clarke's arm. He nodded.

Clarke noticed the thick leather straps by the woman's feet and wrists, as if to bind her down.

Lexa used the resolved tone that she summoned when attempting to keep things emotionless. Clarke wasn't sure if Lexa's defenses were wearing thin or if she was just better at reading her now. "The Mountain People took her years ago. She has been a reaper."

Clarke's lips slid open and she stared at Lexa blankly. Lexa had said it simply, not looking at her, but it threw Clarke's internal axis sideways and twisted her belly; the implications of it hung in the air and began to filter into her consciousness one by one, with the speed at which she was able to process them — _When Clarke came to her with a cure for Lincoln, Lexa's mother was a reaper — When Lexa went to the Mountain, her mother was in it._

 _When Lexa took the truce for her people, her mother was one of them._

"I…thought they only did that to the men."

Nyko nodded. "Nanje caused problems in the bleeding chamber. They made an example of her."

Lexa moved quickly past Clarke, kneeled by her mother and touched her arm. _"Nomon?"_ _(Mom?)_ Her voice and touch were softer than Clarke had ever seen her with someone else, almost as if she and Nyko weren't in the room, her focus entirely on her mother as she spoke. Lexa seemed to know her voice was the only thing pulling her mom back into the world.

Her mother's eyes slowly flitted open, still hooded, over her rising and falling chest as she filtered back enough to register Lexa's presence. " _Leksa.._." Her fingers reached towards Lexa, her voice was a shallow, strained breath that was still half somewhere else. " _Ai gada..._ " ( _My girl…)_

Lexa slipped the cooling cloth off her forehead with a careful touch and swept around her temples, holding her hand as she dipped it in the bowl of fresh water by the bedside and wrung it. _"Skaiheda-de ai tel yu op ste hir. Em laik fisa. Teik em chek yu au." (The sky leader I told you about is here. She is a healer. Let her see you.)_

Her mother's eyes remained half open with difficulty in response, a barely present nod. She didn't seem capable of looking much further past Lexa.

Clarke stared at them as Lexa kneeled on the floor, a soft numbness and tension of sympathy turned in her gut at the implications of all this. "You didn't tell me they had your mother," she said quietly.

Lexa, still at her mother's side, wouldn't look at her. "I had to assume she was dead."

Clarke forced her mind back to solving things she could control. She looked at the straps again, there was a deep mark on the woman's wrist where she clung to Lexa. "She must be detoxed from the Red by now…?"

"She has been away a very long time," Nyko supplied. "The fever has taken her back before." Clarke was familiar with the look in his eyes. He believed it was time for her suffering to be ended, but was staying silent.

"What's causing the infection?" Clarke asked, nearing the bed to examine her better from afar.

"Her demon teeth," Nyko said. "It is rare, but this happens sometimes. She was unlucky. Was too long without medicine. We have already tried everything that we can."

"Her teeth?" Clarke asked blankly. She moved towards the bed. "What's her name?"

"Nanje," Lexa said, looking distant.

Clarke extended her hands to Nanje and hesitated midair, before she carefully reached forward and felt the lymph nodes in her neck. The one on the right was visibly swollen. Even before touching her forehead, her skin was so warmClarke could tell she was deep into a fever.

"Nanje…?" Clarke appealed to her, fishing into her own pockets. Nanje was so out of it, it didn't have much of an effect. "I need to see her teeth." Clarke fisted the small flashlight she kept on her for emergencies. She reached towards Nanje's mouth but Lexa grabbed her wrist.

Lexa looked up at Nyko and jerked her head. He complied, wrapping a cloth around his thumb and gently tugging Nanje's jaw open. Fortunately he wasn't met with any resistance. Clarke clicked the flashlight on and peered in, as the other two looked on, eyeing her apprehensively. Nyko pulled her jaw wide open and tilted her head back as Clarke craned to see anything.

The entire back of her upper gum and throat were swollen and inflamed. Clarke could see the recent spot in front of it, still plum-red and soft, where a back molar had been pulled, which probably accounted for the bloody rags in the corner of the room and the deep bruises around Nanje's wrists.

"What is that?" Clarke surveyed what looked like a yellow-brown paste clinging to patches of Nanje's gum.

"A resin," Nyko said. "Antibiotic."

Behind the pulled tooth the skin on her gum was angry, ruffled and red; it was barely visible but it was also septic. Her wisdom tooth was impacted. She was dying of an impacted wisdom tooth.

Clarke pulled back with a scowl, a queasy feeling settling in her gut. "My mom can fix this."

Can. She said _can_ instead of _could_. Clarke got a little more lightheaded. What was she doing? It was like she was acting on autopilot. Her _own_ mother was tortured and almost killed because of what Lexa did.

Lexa and Nyko both stared at her in question.

She nodded. "My mom can fix this. All she needs is antibiotics and a simple operation."

Lexa responded slowly. "We do not have either of those things." She straightened the hope out of her chest, her chin beginning to level again. Nyko was looking carefully between the two of them.

"That seaweed?" Clarke asked him. "You use it to treat infections."

"She has been taking that. It is not strong enough."

"Then give her more. Make it as concentrated as possible, _with_ an extraction of that resin, and try to get her to drink as much water as you can. Make sure it's been boiled." She turned back to Lexa. "We need to get her to Arkadia."

Lexa looked back at her for a moment. Clarke registered surprise somewhere under the cloak of her eyes but she wasn't sure what else. She wet her lips, pushing down a subtle swallow. "This is not what I need your help with."

"This is the only thing you are going to get my help with."

"Why?" _Why would you even try?_

"Because I'm not gonna let your mom _die_ from an impacted wisdom tooth!"

Lexa was silent

"I can fix this," Clarke said.

Lexa stifled her own words with a glance at her mother—she stalked away from the bed, gesturing for Clarke to follow her back out the door.

When Lexa looked at Clarke she straightened her back. Something similar to what had been there at Mount Weather filtered into her eyes, though it wasn't quite as intense as it had been there. "No." It was unbreeching and definitive.

Clarke shook her head in confusion. "What…?"

Lexa's voice was hard and cold, fortified by the sharpness of her chin, and mimicked in her stance. But her breath was tight. "We are at war," she said simply. "We do not have the time. Or the resources, to attempt something like that."

"But—"

"It is not a possibility." Lexa's voice was so stern and cold Clarke thought maybe she was commanding _herself_.

"This may not be common among your people, but it _is_ common among mine. It's a simple procedure my mom has probably done it a hundred times— _I_ might even be able to do it if I had to. But stronger antibiotics, she needs them _now._ If the infection reaches her brain…" Clarke sucked in a chafed breath. "Lexa. If we don't move her now, your mother is going to die."

Lexa swallowed. Still rigid with a gentle sheen in her eyes, though they were sharp and steady. "Then she must die."

Clarke stared at her for a long moment. When Lexa began to turn away she snapped out of it. "I—I have supplies. That I hid at different points in the woods, there _is_ a bag at one of them that has antibiotics, maybe…six or seven hours from here. With the herbs you have, that would be enough. I could be back by morning—I can save her."

Lexa's eyes softened, deliberating this. They bored into Clarke for a fleeting moment, as if Clarke were a light so bright she wouldn't have been able to look back at it any longer. She hardened again. "No."

"Wh.. _Why?_ "

"We are at war outside. It is too dangerous."

"I can _handle_ it, myself. You think i'm just looking for a way out of here away from _you_ , send as many guards with me as you want."

"You are not to leave this compound."

"Why, because I'm your prisoner now?" Clarke spat.

"If that is what it comes to."

There were guards in the hall, and Clarke had to stifle the fury coursing through her teeth. "Your mom is—"

"I said _no._ " Lexa's eyes widened at her.

Aside Clarke's seething bitterness, she was even more sure that the bite in Lexa's words were for herself. But the cold, dominant authority there was still enough to send a chill over the nub of her neck and make her forget it.

"Do not force me to have you restrained. If you attempt to leave, you will be." Lexa turned abruptly and stalked away. Leaving Clarke staring at her, ready to punch a hole through a wall. The sharp eyes of the armed guards that were trained on her already acted as her chains.

* * *

.

An hour later Clarke left the room that served as her cage to pace the halls. She had too much pent up energy inside of her to stay put without loosing it and tearing the room apart, or doing something stupider, and she had to get it out.

She stalked in circles through the corridors. Her energy crackled through tightened muscles and into the ground with every step, her frustration taken out on door handles unfortunate enough to meet her touch. She clenched her hands at her side to keep herself from ambushing Lexa. She didn't have anything left to say to her, and that left little logical recourse.

It wasn't long before she ended up in front of the door to Nanje's room. She stopped in front of it and stared at the handle, her forehead almost touching the door. She would just check on Nanje again, to see if there was anything else she could do. She reached her hand out to the door nob and then froze, and pulled it away, shaking herself.

Just as Clarke was about to leave she heard a crash on the other side of the door.

Clarke wrenched the door open and barreled in. Before her, Nanje was clinging to a table on the far side of the room, half collapsed on the floor.

"Nanje—?" Clarke rushed over and grabbed her without thought, supporting her body and dragging her up. "What are you doing, you shouldn't be up…" Clarke struggled to keep her upright: for someone so small and feeble looking, she was surprisingly dense.

Nanje's breath was heavy, and she was hot to the touch, still grimacing as if pissed to be so incapacitated.

With difficulty, Clarke lead her back to the bed. Nanje was sweating and out of it enough that even laying down was a bit of a struggle. As she got settled, Clarke noticed she was only using one of her hands, the other still balled into a tight fist. She assumed at first it was balled against pain, but the way she was holding it was different.

Nanje searched absently to stuff her fist under something as she grimaced over the pain of settling her body.

Clarke reached out and pinned down Nanje's wrist, her eyes stony. Nanje gave her what resembled a glower. "What's in your hand." Clarke asked, hard and even.

"Medicine," Nanje said, softening, she opened her clasped hand. Her voice was rasp from lack of use and a swollen throat. "For pain."

Nanje allowed Clarke to pick up the vial and examined it. She unscrewed the cap, reaching it up to her nose to sniff it—

"NO," Nanje snapped, "do not touch that!"

Clarke froze. She knew the coloring, something about it, looked familiar. She scowled. "This is poison."

Nanje stared back at her, she didn't even blink to refute it. "I know about the war," she said. "My fight is over. Yours isn't, neither is Leksa's." She reached for the vial.

Clarke snatched her hand shut around it and backed away. "No…I'm not letting you do that..."

Nanje's weight fell back against the bed, her eyes shut. Under the strained breath she was focusing on, it almost sounded like there had been an aggravated sigh. "Klark," Nanje said crisply. Her voice was suddenly clearer and more definitive than Clarke would have expected.

It threw her, as she turned back to Nanje. "You know my name?"

"My daughter is in love with you. I know your name."

-x-

(i of ii)


	2. I- ii

" _Klark," Nanje said crisply. Her voice was suddenly clearer and more definitive than Clarke would have expected._

 _It threw her, as she turned back to Nanje. "You know my name?"_

 _"My daughter is in love with you. I know your name."_

* * *

-X-

Part I

ii

.

Clarke swallowed and stared at her, uncentered. "How do you know that?" She wished her voice hadn't been as feeble and close to cracking as it had been when she said it.

"Leksa told me. She did not think I was awake…" Nanje grimaced as she attempted to pull herself up on her elbows, which was a laborious affair, "so you may be sure it was genuine. Leksa is in a great deal of pain." She shuffled painfully on the bed with its offending components, ignoring Clarke's gaze, like this was some kind of off-cuff conversation she was having through gritted teeth while multitasking on a battlefield.

"You shouldn't talk." Clarke wet her lips, attempting to stabilize herself. "Save your energy to talk to her…"

"She is different now," Nanje said, still not bothering to look directly at Clarke. "I thought it was the weight of the Command at first, but something deeper about her has changed."

"You...you were gone for a long time…"

Nanje grunted in annoyance, whether physically or at the conversation wasn't clear. "Costia is dead, isn't she?"

 _Lexa hadn't told her?_ Clarke swallowed. "How did you..."

"If my daughter loves someone else, she is dead. Or something equally as drastic has changed."

Clarke nodded, hating the position she was in right now. "Azgeda took her. They tortured and executed her."

Nanje's head jerked up to look at her without pause for the first time, and something fierce and fearful descended over eyes.

"I think, Lexa blames herself..."

"Azgeda?" Over the heaving chest Nanje seemed to be electing to ignore, her voice still cracked like a whip. She looked back away from Clarke into nothingness ahead of her. Her eyes flooded with vulnerability as she digested the news. A mixture of pain, anger, fear, and something putrid and blazing stirred around through the sheen in them and moved across her face. Clarke could see in the silence, that Nanje was accepting a major blow under the mask demanded of a Grounder—like maybe she'd just lost a child—angry about a fate that had already been dealt.

She looked like she was going to tear a mountain apart with her bare hands to stop it, but obviously couldn't because it was too late. "Costia was..." Her voice stuttered in anger and grief, unwilling to accept this. "Costia was not a warrior...She did not..."

"I'm sorry," Clarke said.

Nanje's face firmed up, swallowing the dire frustration that stuck behind the sheen in her eyes. "Every one of them must die," she said simply.

Clarke opened her mouth in question but nothing came out.

"That means she was dismembered and the army order to rape her until she was dead. I have seen it before."

Clarke blanched and gaped at her in horror, the world knocked on its access and her throat went dry.

"You are ignorant," Nanje said glancing at her absently. "That is dangerous. Leksa should have told you. That is what will be done to you if they catch you."

Clarke's heart was thundering in her ears, the world still unstable like a moving ship.

"It is what will be done to Leksa, and worse, if she looses this war—And publicly burned alive, if they can keep her awake that long."

She side eyed Clarke, not really looking at her. "We believe with such things before death, the spirit can be scared away from ever returning to the earth. Azgeda does these things. They will do _everything_ they can to make sure that happens with the Commander, in order to protect their power over the people. I will not let that happen to my daughter—"

She looked like she was preparing to wage a battle herself, though she was still just fighting with her own body to stay settled on her elbows. She reminded Clarke of Anya, only older.

"Keep your gun, and all of your bullets with you, fully loaded at all times." Nanje reached around with difficulty into her boot. "This building is large, and full of potential traitors to you from both sides. Hide as many weapons on your body as you can." She manifested a dagger that looked like it had been stollen from a medic and handed it to Clarke. "Trust no one. Except Leksa."

"Lexa left me to die. I _don't_ trust her."

"Fine. Un-important. This is bigger than your life. She is the only one here you can trust— _No_ one."

"Even you?"

"I am going to die tonight. I have no reason to lie to you. But, yes. If Azgeda were here right now, I would trade you to save even a portion of Leksa's fate in a second. Those most loyal to Leksa's command will also trade you to save her without blinking. She is the head of our nation. It dies without her."

"You suddenly seem much more lucid than you did before." Clarke's voice was monotonous and laced with heavy sarcasm.

"I am awake now."

"You aren't talking to her on purpose." This was good. This meant she wasn't as close to going systematically septic as Clarke had thought she'd been. She didn't imagine being bled, punished, and huddling, rabid, in the reaper tunnels for over two years, on nothing but human flesh, did much for the immune system.

"I am going to die. It is better she thinks sooner. My sickness is distracting her. And when I die tonight, I would prefer my daughter has already said goodbye to me. It is cruel enough I came back."

"She needs you right now."

"No. She is grown. She needs _you_."

Clarke took an unnerved breath at the statement. "You're not gonna die. I have the medicine you need. I can get it for you."

Nanje barely flinched at the information. "You cannot leave this compound."

"I'm the only one that knows where it is."

"You will _not_ risk yourself, leaving here, for my life." It was a command. She waved her hand at the side of the bed. "Water…" Clarke obliged the matriarch, handing her the glass that was on the side table. "When you leave, fetch me Gustus."

Clarke hesitated. Nanje looked up at her silence."Gustus is dead." The deep sadness that washed through Nanje's eyes when they darted away was visible. "He committed treason because he wanted to protect Lexa, and she had to execute him."

Nanje practically cleared her throat to stay down to business, turning back to the task of repositioning her body again. "Then fetch me Anya."

Clarke faltered. Nanje looked up at her more pointedly now, her mouth slowly parting open at the implication in Clarke;s shifty silence. Clarke simply gave a tight shake of her head and bowed her eyes. "My people shot her before they knew we were striking amnesty."

Nanje blinked, slow and hard, and looked at the ceiling. "Indra will do then."

"No…" Clarke said. "I'm not bringing someone in here to help you kill yourself."

"I am not the one who needs your protection. Leksa is."

"If you want to protect Lexa, stay alive and _help_ her."

" _I_ cannot help her. I cannot help you. I can only make things more difficult."

"You don't even know me…" Clarke shook her head, "why are you—"

"Who you are is not what matters."

"Then I'm pretty sure you're the only person who thinks that right now…"

"If they take you, Leksa will break. A person cannot handle being subjected to that experience twice. Your life _is_ Leksa's life."

Clarke stared at Nanje for a moment. "I thought love was weakness?"

"What fool did you learn that from?" Nanje spat. "Love is necessary, nothing more or less."

"Lexa. I learned that from Lexa."

"Foolish," she muttered, falling back against the bed and sealing her eyes shut again. "I understand…" She sighed. She sounded exhausted with life. "All of her good advisers are dead."

Clarke took the opportunity of Nanje's dreary silence to regain herself. "I didn't come here to pander to Lexa—I was brought here against my will. I am only helping you because I have too much blood on my hands—and I _can_. I don't know what you _think_ is going on, but Lexa is _not_ my ally—"

"Have you ever seen someone burned alive?" Nannie gave Clarke a pointed look that silenced her immediately. "Flesh burning from their body in front of their eyes. Like charred meat, the reason they don't take the eyes is so they can see it. Not just their body but the public they shattering into something less than human in front of."

Clarke wet her lips again over dry words. "This isn't…this isn't my war," she said with difficulty.

Nanje's eyes flicked over hers, faux haughtiness in them that was purposefully meant to scare her. "They will use your body as a trophy. As I am sure they did to Costia. Do everything they can to it to try to break her. Everyone thinks they will be strong, they will not be broken—until there are hot coals being shoved inside of them."

Clarke had a difficult time keeping her eyes level and fixed on her.

Nanje turned her shoulder to Clarke, leaning back on the bed again. "Go bed my daughter while you're both still alive, Sky Person. Give me my poison."

Clarke's tongue darted out to wet a shaky lip. She changed the subject in an attempt to regain some semblance of control over her composure. "You know about my people?"

"I have eaten your friends," Nanje said, staring at the wall.

Clarke suppressed the wave of nausea that lapped inside her stomach. "That wasn't you," she said softly, "who did those things…"

"Then who?"

"The Red. You didn't have control over that. _They_ forced you into doing those things, that wasn't your fault…" The words pulled a primordial ball of wetness into her throat, and she felt shaken.

"I am dying. Save your counseling for the Commander."

"The _'Commander',_ is not…" She knew her countenance was feeble, triggered now by her own words. The conversation had left a sheen nagging at her eyes that stole away her ability to focus.

"It does not matter what your feelings are for Leksa," Nanje said sullenly. "You are at a turning point. Our people must come together. If they are not united now they will kill each other—both sides—death. It may take one-hundred years but it _will_ happen. And right now you might be able to stop that."

Something changed in Nanje at this point, as if she'd given up all pretenses. Her eyes were sad; tired and vulnerable. Clarke didn't know what Lexa's history with her mother was, but right now Nanje was looking at her as nothing more than a determined mother on her deathbed. "You…" she muttered distantly, "have a strong heart…"

She grabbed Clarke's hand.

 _Oh no..._

"Promise me, you will help her. Promise me, and I will return to this world one day and save your life. And your people's. I keep my word. Let me die, protect her."

Clarke stared at Nanje, then at her hand, and back at the woman again.

 _Oh NO._

"Please…" Nanje pleaded in a breath.

Clarke swallowed.

"Okay. I'll help Lexa. But I am not gonna help you die—And only if _you_ aren't going to do it either. You are _not_ dying tonight," Clarke said firmly. "Understood?" She glared back at Nanje, the expression in her eyes and edge in her voice as honed as a sword, to drill home the deal breaker. " _That_ is what's happening. Take it or leave it."

Nanje stared back at her defiantly for a moment. Then she relented, and let out a small ironic laugh. " _Wanheda…_ " she murmured in observance.

"I won't leave here, okay? I promise. But I can save you. Just let me try."

* * *

.

" _Bak op. Ai gaf chich Heda op."_ (Move. I need to speak to the Commander.)Clarke was surprised this actually worked. Lexa must have told them she was permitted, because the guards parted out of her way without so much as a warning knock.

Inside the Commander's chambers, something was shattered across the floor like it had been flung there intentionally. When Clarke entered, Lexa leapt to her feet and turned her back. It wasn't fast enough to cover the fact she'd been curled in a ball on the floor against the wall, crying.

Clarke clamped down the parts of her heart inside of her that burned and cried out to Lexa.

"What is it, Klark?" Her voice was steady, clearing out the rasp that clung to it like sawdust. But she was still gathering herself together with her back to Clarke, and ignoring that it was obvious.

Clarkeheld herself together, keeping her eyes steady and unreadable, and her voice just as. "Your mom said you told her you're in love with me."

Lexa's head jerked around, disregard for the vestiges of tears still in her eyelashes.

Clarke stared steadily back at Lexa, her face unchanged. "Is that true?" she demanded. Lexa really _hadn't_ thought her mother was awake.

She wet her lips, her eyes changed and firmly set on Clarke's as she spoke, and her lip trembled a little. "Yes." She held Clarke's gaze. Her eyes were soft but resolved, as if the sentiment was genuine, but she already knew it wouldn't matter.

Clarke tamped her insides back down again, keeping her expression firm and unreadable. But for a moment, Clarke forgot what she'd come in here to say anyway. She was staring back into Lexa's eyes and she had completely forgotten about anything else in the world except for the faint pull in the pit of her stomach.

If Lexa's eyes hadn't darted away when she chewed the inside of her lip, Clarke would have stayed stuck there. She might have done something wanton and stupid.

Instead she cleared her throat.

"Your mother isn't as sick as you think she is right now. She knows about the war. She's acting like she's farther gone because she's planning on killing herself so you aren't distracted. I walked in on her trying to use poison. She promised me she would wait, but you mom is…strong willed. And…kind of intense." Lexa nodded. "I left guards with her."

"Thank you," Lexa said faintly.

"I promised Nanje I would help you." Lexa was quiet, her expression pliant and difficult to read as she studied Clarke. Clarke took a step forward. "She can still make it right now, but she doesn't have a lot of time. If she doesn't get better antibiotics the infection might go to her brain, or she'll go septic and her organs will start shutting down." She paused, not getting much of a reaction from Lexa. "I can save her. But I can't do it without that bag."

Lexa pushed subtly at her throat. "I will not permit you to leave."

 _Lexa had been protecting her. Lexa was going to let her own mother die to protect her._ "I told Nanje about Costia. She told me what that means they did to her."

Lexa's jaw clenched, her eyes wide and absent. She looked like a trapped animal. There was a long pregnant silence, until she looked back up at Clarke, and they stared at each other.

Clarke's countenance broke, "I would die before I let something like that happen to you," she finally said in a strained whisper, a constricted throat. The formality melted out of both of them, Lexa in awe and surprise. Clarke's eyes watered. "Ever..."

Lexa's eyes glistened wide, hammering into hers.

Clarke stifled the urge in her body to run towards Lexa after the confession, and swallowed it down with her unshed tears. She walked across the room, in front of Lexa instead. Clarke was defiant. Stern. And Lexa may as well have been a doe. "I don't care what you think you need to do. You aren't my commander and I'm not just going to sit here and let someone I can actually save die."

Lexa's head turned helplessly back and forth, water at the rims of her eyes. Her face said everything about what she was going to do, at this point, to sabotage Clarke's decisions against her will. "If they catch you…" Her voice was like a different person's.

"I'm not leaving." Clarke stepped forward. And it was a war room. "Right now, we need to find someone fast and quiet who knows the woods extremely well. I can draw a map."

Lexa closed her eyes, and licked her lips to collect herself. "You won't leave?" her voice was low, almost a whisper.

"I won't." Clarke took another step towards her, and Lexa opened her eyes to Clarke's.

They regarded each other for a long while, until the person Clarke remembered—the one she'd accidentally grown attached to, who had slipped in, like beams of light through the cracks in their actions—was the one standing in front of her. She could feel her defenses slipping, the violence inside of her draining out wherever it found a fissure, and a shiver in her fingers dangling at her side.

"Klark…" Lexa whispered, her face broke into softness with her voice. She waved almost imperceptibly when the glamour of the empress's mask she wore snapped away from her. For the space between them and none else. Her chest was strained from a kind of exertion that wasn't physical. "I'm sorry…" It was unscripted, an impulsive burble from her lips.

Clarke squeezed the trembling fingers of her hand by her side in and out of a fist. It felt as if there were an invisible string drawing her towards Lexa, _the Commander._ Her enemy.

And then it happened again.

"I'm sorry…" A breath, and Lexa wavered closer to her, drawn by the same invisible string. It was more of a press from her moistening eyes than anything else. She didn't seem to care in that moment about anything but that space between them, the things left unspoken. The appeal was for nothing but that sentiment alone; she wasn't looking for anything in return.

Lexa's shiny human eyes and the haunt of Nanje's warning broke Clarke. The graphic quality of the warning was enough to make the threat of Lexa's disappearance truly tangible and, against the will in Clarke's chest, it was more than unacceptable. It was the Lexa that Clarke got-by telling herself didn't truly exist. The shattered debris on the floor, and the gaze searing back at her, proved otherwise.

"I might hate you for what you did," Clarke choked. "But I can't loose you."

"Hate me. As long as you're sa—"

"Shutup…" Clarke seared her eyes shut with a scowl and shook her head. When she opened her eyes again, she couldn't look at Lexa, and was trying to keep the tears in.

She moved forward against Lexa, still not looking at her, until their bodies were against one another. Lexa's shoulders stumped into the embrace and she leaned a little forward into Clarke. Her breath played out against the side of Clarke's ear. She din't move her hands, she didn't pull Clarke forward: she stood there giving Clarke all of the control, until Clarke's eyes slammed shut and her chin moved into the crook of Lexa's neck. A long breath playing across her skin, inhaling the girls scent and warmth.

Clarke let go of the tension in her body and tugged Lexa into her, clinging to the course fabric at her side. Arms wrapped around her, and a strained unsteady breath—that reeked of fear—filled her ears, that was _only_ for her to hear in the way it made Lexa human. Clarke buried her head in Lexa's shoulder. Because they were going to tear Lexa apart if Polis didn't hold, and Clarke's people weren't on her side. Her fingers trembled a little behind Lexa as they reached for the back of her head. Uninhibited strategies flickered desperately through the edges of her mind to fake Lexa's death, to hide her—from her own people, from Clarke's—from everyone. It wasn't something you wanted to do for someone you hated.

Clarke spoke with watery eyes over Lexa's shoulder, staring at the wall. "This doesn't mean I forgive you..." she slipped her trembling fingers into Lexa's hair, and leaned her head into Lexa's being, savoring the touch, the smell, the warmth; the release of the human contact between them only _desperately_ made her crave more. She sighed hopelessly into the tears in her eyes. "It just means I need you." Clarke closed her eyes and breathed out everything that was left, her being falling into Lexa's, which effortlessly drenched her cells.

She was terrified of what kind of levies would break open inside of her if she kissed her—and what they'd bring crashing down with them in the world outside.

But she did it anyway.

.

 _(odon)_

 _._


	3. II- i

**I decided to continue this. I got a little attached to Nanje too. Y'all asked for it…This will be a four part series of oneshots, broken appropriately into installments. I will put spoiler heavy content warnings on individual parts/chapters in the endnotes, which WILL become rather important. This is the first of two installments for Part II. Threw a lot of work into this one and I'm proud of it.**

 **If you would like to get slightly more fucked up, listen to Winter by Mree, and Don't Forget About Me by Cloves.**

 **CW: Sexual content.**

 **Enjoy.**

* * *

—X—

Part II

i

.

"We have done as much as we can tonight," Lexa said. Her eyes were still resolved and formal in the candlelight of the war room, which Clarke had been locked in alone with the Commander for hours upon hours.

Clarke kept rubbing at her eyes, but she failed to acknowledge how exhausted she was, or the dull ache in her legs and back that rebelled against her from all of the time on her feet. It must have been long into the night at this point, maybe only a couple hours left until sunrise.

"We should rest."

Clarke nodded dully, and eyed Lexa out of the corner of her vision. There was distance in Lexa's eyes, under the tempered exhaustion that must have been there as well. She wondered if it would actually be as easy for Lexa to sleep tonight as she'd made it sound: her mother's life hanging over her head in the darkness.

"I will send guards with you to your room." Lexa stared absently into the strategy table.

Clarke's gaze rose. She studied Lexa silently, until Lexa looked up at her. Clarke held her eyes. "Or…" A weight pressed between them in the ellipses, that was warmed with the thrill of new emotion. It stuck Lexa's vision to Clarke's.

Clarke wet her lips and continued to look back at Lexa without saying anything; the exhaustion hung like clouds of felt around their shoulders and dampened the space in the air. Lexa's eyes questioned Clarke's intention, and they were soon thrown off guard by what they discovered, 'The Commander' stolen out of them.

"Or…not," Clarke suggested on her breath. The implications behind her words were obvious.

Lexa's mouth parted momentarily, only closing when she took a grounding breath. She hadn't been expecting something like this from Clarke. A sort of wondrous desire pressed in her vision. But a formality returned to her. She swallowed, her eyes still locked on Clarke on their own accord, and there was a kind of distant indignation, an oppression, beneath her composure.

"Can't I just come with you?" Clarke asked softly, fatigued.

Lexa's jaw twitched. She swallowed down a more pressing wave of softness and receptivity. "We should not be seen together." She tilted her chin higher in the air, as if to distance herself from Clarke, her body speaking for 'The Commander,' but her eyes, and the way they flickered towards Clarke's, annunciated that it wasn't what she wanted. They darted away, and she pushed at her throat. "It is too dangerous."

 _What—_ Clarke thought with rebellion and injustice — _so they were just supposed to hide?_ To sneak around in the dark corners of everything. With only flashes of intimacy from the fissures in the responsibilities that lay on their shoulders? Until they were dead anyway the next morning? Or the morning after that? Or after that?

She stepped slowly towards Lexa.

"It's too late," she whispered.

Lexa turned her head to Clarke, question in her eyes, and strain in her composure.

Clarke reached out and gently traced her fingers over one of Lexa's. "It's too late to stop," she said, her voice still a careful whisper as she finished her step forward, her eyes never leaving Lexa's. "We're going to suffer the consequences either way."

Lexa's eyes softened and fell to Clarke's lips; a sign she was no longer in command of the world.

"They already know…your actions. That you," Clarke's throat tightened, "value me."

"They do not know how _much_ ," Lexa uttered in a different voice. Her eyes hooded a little when they flickered down to Clarke's lips, but were soon back on Clarke's eyes and her tone steadier again. "My people will kill me, if they think that I am weak," she whispered back at Clarke. "If word gets out we're…" she hesitated, wetting her lips again over nerves, "spending the night together, the people will think my judgement is compromised...I won't be able to keep you safe." Lexa swallowed. "Azgeda…"

Clarke's gaze fell to Lexa's lips before searching her eyes again, a distant scowl of concern in her own. She wasn't ready to make any kind of commitment. She _did_ need to rest. She really, really needed to rest. And she couldn't stand the thought of walking off in the dark and crawling into a cold bed, alone. Of staring at the ceiling with injustice and pain in her throat for the rest of the night; rising again only to watch Lexa fall and be gone forever. She couldn't accept that—as her life.

Clarke's hand came up softly to the side of Lexa's face.

Lexa involuntarily closed her eyes at the touch, the sudden warmth overwhelming, and the breath tight in her chest. "Klark…" she breathed, as she wavered towards Clarke into the touch.

Clarke turned Lexa's head just gently enough to face her.

Lexa's eyes fluttered open, glazed with sadness, her breath tight. "It will make everything harder…" The whisper was a plea. But her head wavered forwards toward Clarke until their foreheads touched with a stabilizing release. Lexa's hand found its way to the side of Clarke's face as well, pressing the two of them together.

They stayed like that in the dimly lit war room, centered by their joined axis and finding reprieve in each other, floating in a joined essence.

"Ignoring it," Clarke said, "is harder." She caved and brushed her lips closer to Lexa's. They were met with Lexa's warm breath, tumbling out over them; a strain in it at the sudden proximity, like a small animal being hunted. "It's harder…" Clarke barely murmured, and she brought their lips together.

Tired, groggy, and languid: she wasn't prepared for the molten crackle that met her there. The way it lobbed into her chest, and made it pulsate and glow, as Lexa's lips moved firmly over hers.

In it, something was being expressed from Lexa, in the spark between their cells, that was cloying, heavy, and heart-wrenching, but simultaneously on fire with the promise of life.

Clarke was surprised when it picked up; when the warmth billowed over them and prompted her to press back into the concentrated spaces, the hotspots, where their bodies met. She was surprised when Lexa gave into it and met her return, not shying away from the passion that had been stewing inside of them; that had been ferried away in a lock-box at the base of their bellies for so long.

Clarke pulled back, her eyes completely glazed, forehead against Lexa. She breathed, brusk, against Lexa's lips, "The door's locked…" As she said it, her hand slipped into the fold in Lexa's shirt above her belt.

Lexa's cheeks went red, transfixed on Clarke, their breath puffing against one another and entwining in the air between their lips. Lexa shuddered and closed her eyes when Clarke's hand made it under her shirt, slipping its way towards the curve of her hip, while searching in a clumsy slowness through the layers of fabric for a way to skin.

Clarke had a brief vision of climbing on top of Lexa right here on the war table—swiping the war models to the floor and demolishing what was left of the game-board with their bodies. Or even just claiming the moment, under the table, on the floor.

But everything was sharp corners, and hardness, and chill. And her body ached with fatigue, crying out for some kind of stability, and warmth. She didn't think she could function again another day without that. "Take me..back to your bed…" Clarke choked out, surprising herself.

A silent-groan ripped through Lexa's brow, and her eyes cleared open in a pained smolder, her breath syrupy against Clarke's lips. She struggled against the fog in her eyes. Her head lolled against Clarke's, as she shook it tightly, looking unlaced. "We'll..be seen…"

"Send away the guards," Clarke breathed.

Lexa looked pleadingly into her eyes. She shook her head at the notion of leaving themselves unprotected.

"We can make it look like we're still working…"

But Lexa's gaze was hardening up.

"Am I going to have to climb in your window?" Clarke was tired, annoyed, and losing her patience with reality.

"It is a fifty story drop. You will do no such thing."

"I just want to sleep," Clarke mumbled, starting to feel the press of multiple kinds of weight on her shoulders, she leaned more openly towards Lexa for support. "I just wanna sleep…"

Lexa was more aware of the non-verbal cues than Clarke was. A gentle palm came up behind Clarke's neck to embrace her, accompanied by a supportive _hush_ -that sent a windmill moving at the base of Clarke's gut, and made her feel as if parts of herself were floating. Lexa stabilized them that way for a moment, with Clarke's head bent into the side of her neck. The whole while, Clarke dreaded the looming second it would be taken away; replaced by something practical. By a chill, and a lonesome injustice.

The hush settled into them, calming the way the room had been spinning around them and their exchange, and settling into the center of it all, where they rested. Clarke ached to attach herself in a way she couldn't be removed. It manifested only with the force of intent she softly laid her head against Lexa.

"Come to my room after a moment…" Lexa whispered. "I will inform the guards to expect you. Shortly after, I'll relieve them for fresh ones, who will not know you are already there. If you—If you don't…" she said, "I will understand…"

Clarke pulled back with a painstaking slowness, heads side by side, until she could see into Lexa's eyes. She wanted to say she wouldn't miss it for anything. But she knew, in this world, that would be an untruth, and she said nothing instead.

* * *

Clarke was so beat that, once in the safety of Lexa's chambers, she was already sliding quickly onto the bed, having made a beeline for it without much thought or formality. The second her body touched base with the bed's surface she was so grateful for its existence that, in the fog of delirium behind her eyes, she wrote it a silent love letter with her breath.

Lexa was fiddling at the side of the room now: Clarke's actions had set the tone, on both ends, for the simple gratitude of being horizontal and not alone. The weight of the moment, the anticipation and uncertainty of something so simple, clung in the air between them, and kept Clarke lucid and waiting on Lexa.

Clarke watched her from the bed,Lexa's back turned to her, as she undid her armor.

"Do you, want help?" Clarke's voice was much more brusk when it came out than she'd expected or intended, her unconscious mind having already gone to places she had yet to imagine before the words were out of her mouth.

Lexa hesitated on the laces she was loosening on her armor. Though her back was still turned, her eyes darted back towards Clarke and her chin quirked up a little, before she resumed and slipped off the leather wrist brace. Lexa was nervous.

It made Clarke want to unnerve her more.

Clarke had thought she'd meant it in a practical manner, just to be helpful. But the thought of actually undressing Lexa of her armor, while she just stood there, was warm, and smoggy, and clung to the space behind her nose. And she was caught now by how tedious it must be to have those extra layers between you and the world all the time; and how Lexa wore them like a second skin.

"No need to get up, Klark."

"Then come here." Clarke deadpanned, gaze fixed on the back of Lexa's head.

Lexa froze. She stayed that way for a moment before glancing back at Clarke. She hesitated, her movements slow. There was a long moment before she floated to the side of the bed.

Clarke looked Lexa in the eye before she reached out towards her, not truly righting herself to get there. She slipped the tips of her fingers under the first buckle that crossed Lexa's abdomen. Her eyes returned to Lexa's as they curled around the leather, and she gently tugged forward until Lexa's thighs bumped against the bed, her center of gravity following Clarke's hand as far as she could lean.

The look Clarke received, as Lexa swallowed, was worth it.

Clarke held onto the strap as she started to pull the remaining laces on Lexa's armor apart and loosened them, leaving them strewn. As she did it she kept looking back up at Lexa, whose eyes were fixed on her.

The air between them was heavy.

Clarke was surprised to find her fingers were actually trembling, and hoped she could play it off as the chill in the air, which seeped into the hearth-warmed room past the heavy leather curtains pinned up between them and the rest of the city of Polis. Clarke's eyes shot up to Lexa's and stuck there, her fingers slowly moving to undo the buckles.

Lexa's eyes were so hooded; she was in a trance.

The longer they looked at each other, the more magnified every little movement of Clarke's hands became, the thinner the air, and the heavier and more blatant the implications that fell out into it became. It hung around them through the smog in Clarke's eyes, naked and absent of formality. Clarke loosened the second buckle, and Lexa's lips gently parted. Something released around them with the unhinged strap, and Lexa's eyes, somehow, became even more hooded and intimate.

Still looking at Lexa, Clarke moved to the last buckle, then looked down in order to unpin the leather. She slowly wrapped her fingers around its entirety this time, tucking them underneath, her knuckles brushing the warmth of Lexa's body. She was holding the two of them together, and she wasn't going to let go. Clarke's lips parted even further. Her eyes popped back, unmercifully to Lexa's, who now seemed somewhat unsteady. Clarke watched her carefully, deliberately, on every breath, as she slowly curled her middle finger up, against Lexa. She skated it back and forth across Lexa's abdomen, a tender caress.

It unsteadied Lexa, her bottom lip falling further with a shudder. Her hips wavered imperceptibly forward, further against the bed, and her shoulders dropped. She was transfixed on Clarke, chest rising softly up and down, and her eyes pliable like the rest of her body as it leaned precariously into the bed.

Clarke glanced down at her own hand and back into Lexa's eyes again—at her lips—her own breath a little labored.

Lexa's eyes pressed into hers.

Clarke's gaze darted to Lexa's lips in question and all she received in reply was a steady look. She wavered towards Lexa, asking for the kiss. A threshold moment. Ready to crush these berries plucked between them—and she was going to do it—she tugged ever so gently on the strap to pull Lexa towards her and began to dip forward.

But just as subtly, Lexa's head wavered back, her eyes coming back to Clarke's from where they had been on her lips. She took a long steadying breath that was tight and shaky. Her eyes cleared but only a little; just enough. "You should rest…" she whispered.

Clarke hesitated to pull back as well, questioning Lexa's eyes. Ready to rebel against the notion.

Until a warm hand pressed fully against the side of her face. It intimated, in its touch, everything she was so longing to crawl inside of at a visceral level and disappear into right now, and silenced the steam and rebellion that had risen up inside of Clarke. She nodded against Lexa's hand, her lips still parted, and they exchanged a soft look before pulling away.

Clarke settled back into the far side of the bed. She moved the covers over her, leaving plenty of unruffled space beside her for Lexa to crawl into with a certain measure of physical privacy. Clarke was comfortable—more than happy for the absolution in being horizontal in a real bed, finally—and warmed in more ways than one.

Lexa rushed methodically—maybe even slightly awkward, so Clarke averted her eyes—to slough off enough clothing to comfortably sleep without bothering to change into anything else.

Content, Clarke watched Lexa as she started to slip as respectfully as possible under the covers, still awkward. Tousled with a delirium from lack of rest, and the basic, vital need for her senses to be soothed, Clarke chuckled groggily to herself. "Your mom told me to 'bed' you," she mumbled, amused.

Lexa froze where she was settling into the covers. She jerked around to face Clarke, her eyes wide as hell; mortified. "She said what to you…?"

Clarke smiled vaguely at the reaction, a laugh burbling from her throat. For a moment Lexa was nothing but a flustered teenager.

But Lexa's countenance quickly sobered and changed. "Kl…" Her lips went thin and she stuffed the covers back off of her onto the bed, stiffly, and started to get out of it. Her voice was methodical and somber again, though struggling for purchase. "Klark, you are under no kind of obligation to…"

Another echo of a chuckle slipped past Clarke's lips and she stilled Lexa's progress with a hand to her arm. "Hey…" she looked at Lexa through woozy eyes, "I'm here because I wanna be. That's the only reason." Her fingers slowly ran down Lexa's wrist: Lexa who was open, and nervous. "I'm here. So," she tugged gently, "come here."

* * *

Clarke's intention to 'just sleep' had been wholesome, and Lexa's body—the distance having slowly closed until it was pressed beside hers—was a gift equivalent to the parting of the seas.

That had been enough.

Until it wasn't.

The loom of danger and the fleetingness of time had pressed their gentle touches, their skin, more adamantly together. Until their was a desperation pleading at the strength in the simple places they touched—thumbs over the backs of hands, ankles against insteps, thighs against the backs of knees—that reached a fever pitch, boiling up behind the frame laid by their hip bones, and it dispelled any say, or exhaustion, from their minds.

Clarke was the one to turn fully against Lexa to burry her face in her throat, and start kissing up the base of her neck in a proposition of hot breath—that only took one hanging, stuttered hiccup of time to earn her a languid, involuntary gasp, and then be responded to, fervently.

It was overwhelming.

It was all consuming. It was hot and soft and right; so right that the vestiges of anger still clinging to the wings of Clarke's mind slipped right away with the fear, and all other superficial concerns.

The hot untamed breath in her ear, the softness of Lexa's skin, something finally breaking under her tongue. The press of Lexa's mouth dragging against her neck—always lead with passion—that slowly became bolder and more open. Until it bloomed forth into wetness, and took Clarke with it like melting wax. Trailing up to her ear, down into the soft space under her arm beside her breast—desperate but restrained and unassuming, a tamed reverence, which was simultaneously full of such a vacuum of love, they were feeble not to lose themselves completely to it.

The way ouches—like the deliberate tangling of their fingers—were more intimate than everything else. Gasps that also tangled together at every new touch. The breathy moans as they pressed their bodies flush, with _nothing_ left between them. Clarke thought she could lose herself sustained in that moment forever. She thought her mind would reach a fever pitch and drown in the slickness that blossomed between them.

The noises Lexa made when she came, when Clarke was filling her, were addictive. They filtered out of Lexa into Clarke's ear and lodged there, echoing through in her brain—long, long after—hanging, like a persistent, low-lying fog: a wanton, gasping moan that seemed to roll on forever, and pulled from the deepest reaches of her throat with an earthy rasp.

It was jarring for _how_ wanton, how open and human it was when, despite its tempered volume, it filled up Clarke's ears, and didn't stop—pressing Clarke's movements forward, harder, faster, more heartfelt and past the point of exhaustion she thought was possible. And there was the moment her name burbled out, sandwiched in the middle on the skate of the air in that noise like a brand, … _Klark._ It was all _beyond_ the sounds someone could make when they were in agony. And the ease, the comfort, with which it fell out of Lexa was startling.

The way Lexa looked at her afterwards as they gasped for breath, bodies spent of all surplus energy in their cells...was like Clarke was some divine hallucination.

That sound, it was something Clarke wanted to brand into her mind, if nothing else because she couldn't do it with smells. She wanted to be able to summon it every time she was within the reach of Lexa's aura: When there was 'Public'. When there was 'Heda'. When there was war.

To remind herself.

To believe.

x

 _(i of ii)_


End file.
